Harmonia
by windtear
Summary: Sakura received an injury that forced her to retire from being a kunoichi. Ten years later, she's the hottest idol in Fire Country... but neither she nor Konoha have forgotten each other....
1. Default Chapter

Harmonia  
  
by Raye Johnsen   
  
'Naruto' is copyright Kishimoto Masahusi and all associated parties, NOT ME.  
  
Part One  
  
The Hokage of Konoha Village was, on this particular morning, going through the requests for the services of the Konoha ninja corps. Sometimes she did it alone, sometimes with her medical apprentices and sometimes with one or more members of the ANBU corps. Right now, her chief apprentice/secretary/personal assistant, who had been with her for years, was her current audience. She had cheerfully dispatched a group of chuunin off to apprehend a murderer, and sent a training team of genin on a simple information-gathering trip, when she picked up a delicately calligraphed envelope. She read it, and then said, "Hey, Shizune, listen to this:  
  
"To the Hokage of Konoha Village: Greetings, Lady Tsunade.  
"I am the idol singer known as 'Cherry', and I wish to hire a team of genin for a bodyguarding mission. This mission will last no longer than two months, and require the team to travel around Fire Country. They will be required to provide physical protection to my entourage while we are travelling on my concert tour, and examine our accomodations and destinations on our journey for traps and dangerous fixtures.  
"I would not rate this mission above a 'C' in difficulty. I feel confident in making this assessment, as I was a genin of Konoha under my true name of Haruno Sakura, before an injury in the line of duty forced my retirement. For this reason the mission will not include the defence of my person.  
"The reason I am making this request is that I have been receiving anonymous letters threatening me. Although I can protect myself, I cannot protect the support personnel that I require to perform on tour.  
"I do not believe that I am being targeted by shinobi from another country, but instead a lone civilian, and so a team of genin should be more than adequate to deal with the problem.  
"I look forward to your prompt reply, etcetera, etcetera."  
  
Tsunade tossed the square of parchment towards her desk.  
  
"So, what do you think?"  
  
Shizune looked at the neatly written letter. "I remember Miss Haruno," she said quietly. "Quite a brilliant young ninja. A shame about her leg, really. I'd trust her judgement about this. However..."  
  
"However...?" Tsunade prompted.  
  
"She was Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumaki Naruto's teammate, and she was injured defending them. They might take the issue of her safety... rather personally."  
  
"So I'm likely to find two jounin in my office demanding to go, if they find out. Which means that they don't know. Which means that Miss Haruno didn't tell them." Tsunade commented, a dark grin beginning to creep across her features. "We'll give this one to young Hinata's team."  
  
Shizune blinked. "Hyuuga Hinata's team? But that guarantees Mr. Uzumaki will find out!"  
  
"Indeed it will," Tsunade replied. "Why should I get my ear chewed off when I can feed Miss Haruno's to them?"  
  
"Sometimes, Master Tsunade, you are quite evil."  
  
"It comes with being Hokage."  
  
Sasuke leaned against the wooden post of the bridge that he'd agreed to meet Naruto at. He was early (as usual) but he did not mind waiting. Years of being Naruto's teammate had worn irritation at his quirks into familiar exasperation.  
  
"Saaasuke-kuuun!" sailed across the air, and Sasuke stiffened in sudden shock. But the voice was alto, not a contralto, and the figure jogging towards him was brunette, with her hair tied up in buns.  
  
"Sasuke-kun! I wasn't expecting to see you here!" TenTen said cheerfully as she drew close to him. "How have you been? Heard from Miss Sakura recently?"  
  
"Fine," Sasuke said, dropping into the taciturn demeanour of his teenage years. "She sent a letter a few weeks ago. She's going on tour soon, and she says she's managed to get Konoha on the itinery this time."  
  
TenTen grinned and began to do some stretches. "Oh, Lee will be beside himself when he hears that! Not to mention the rest of the Cherry fanclub. Who would've thought ten years ago Miss Sakura would become Fire Country's biggest idol?"  
  
Sasuke glanced away. "Hn."  
  
"Anyway, I've got to go. Neiji-kun and I are going out to dinner, and I've got to go get ready," she said cheerfully, and jogged off. Tossing over her shoulder as a parting comment, she added, "It'll be good to see Miss Sakura again, neh? Byeee!"  
  
Sasuke sank back against the post. Sakura's absence was a subject that he never liked to be reminded of but constantly hovered in the back of his mind, like a missing tooth. None of Konoha's vistas were complete because none of them included a pink-haired figure with the rest of the village's population.  
  
"Hey, Sasuke!" a loud tenor shrieked from the end of the bridge.  
  
Sasuke grinned. "Naruto."  
  
"Ready for dinner? I hope Hinata-chan's making ramen...."  
  
Sasuke blinked with amusement as Naruto began his soothing prattle, praising his oath-wife's cooking skills.  
  
Hinata and Naruto weren't legally married yet (emphasis on the 'yet') because of a law that had been largely unknown until recent times. It declared that fully-trained shinobi were not permitted to marry until their thirtieth birthdays.  
  
Which had not impacted on the village much until the current group of young ninja had reached their twenties, and started pairing off. Wishing to marry (as a high proportion were orphans and/or had lost at least one parent in early childhood, and they wanted to build the families they missed), they had discovered that they were legally unable to.  
  
Some had chosen to remain as residents of their parents' homes and wait. Some had chosen to move out and set up their own homes, where they could act as they chose, but without contravening the law. And some, like Naruto and Hinata, said, "Stuff it", exchanged rings and promises, and made it clear that they were husband and wife in all but law. The village treated such couples as married; Tsunade made officialdom ignore them; and informed observers confidently expected Hyuuga Hiyashi to start talking to his eldest daughter again any decade now. Sasuke sometimes wondered how Hinata had managed to overcome her natural retience to live so. Then he would be dragged off to dinner or karaoke or something with Naruto, and he remembered why.  
  
They entered the foyer of Naruto's home, and Naruto called out, "I'm home!"  
  
"Sorry for the intrusion," Sasuke added.  
  
"Welcome back!" Hinata's voice called out from the spare room. "I'm just -- UGH!"  
  
"HINATA-CHAN!" Naruto yelled, kicking off his shoes and running into the house.  
  
Sasuke followed at a more leisurely pace, and saw Hinata and Naruto carefully setting down a box full of Naruto's camping gear. She looked up and spotted him.  
  
"Oh, Sasuke-kun!" she said cheerfully. "I'm sorry about dinner -- it'll be ramen tonight, I'm afraid. Lady Tsunade is sending my team out on a mission tomorrow morning, so I have to prepare."  
  
Both men blinked. "What are you doing?" Naruto asked.  
  
"Well, Lady Tsunade received a letter from Miss Sakura. Apparently she's being stalked and she's a bit worried about her tour, so she asked for a bodyguard --"  
  
"She's being stalked?" Sasuke cut in.  
  
"Yes, that's what her request letter said --"  
  
"I'm sorry Hinata, Naruto," Sasuke interrupted again. "I'm afraid I can't stay to dinner."  
  
"Wait up," said Naruto quickly. "I'm coming too!"  
  
Hinata blinked. "Excuse me? Where are --?"  
  
"We're going to go see Grandma," Naruto told her.  
  
"You know you shouldn't call Lady Tsunade that...." Hinata sighed to the swinging door where her husband and his best friend used to be.  
  
"You didn't know?" Tsunade said innocently.  
  
"No, we didn't," Sasuke replied through gritted teeth.  
  
"So tell us, Grandma," Naruto added. "What's going on?"  
  
"Don't call me that, and it's fairly straightforward," the Hokage said. "Miss Haruno has received threats that she believes might affect the support personnel that she's taking with her around Fire Country, so she's asked for a team to bodyguard them. It's a reasonable request, and she says that the nature of the threats lead her to believe it's one person, that they're a civilian and that they'll try to set up a trap rather than generate a group for an ambush. It's a standard C-class mission."  
  
"Okay, that explains why Miss Hinata's genin team, they specialise in spying, stealth and dirty tricks," Sasuke said. "But what about Sakura?"  
  
"Miss Haruno was a genin," Tsunade said. "She may not be capable of major taijutsu, but I seriously doubt she's forgotten how to throw kunai. She says that she feels confident she can protect herself, and who am I to disagree?"  
  
"But she was a genin," Naruto pointed out. "That makes her a security risk."  
  
"An extremely minor one," Tsunade replied. "She's not leaked any information, ever, in the ten years since her injury and retirement. The only people who even know that she was born in Konoha rather than the capital outside the village are her family."  
  
"But she could be forced to," Sasuke said. "This stalker could be a cover for something bigger. That makes it a B-class mission."  
  
Tsunade frowned. "You know jounin don't do B-class missions."  
  
"We'll slum it, Grandma."  
  
"Don't. Call. Me. That."  
  
"Sure thing, Grandma."  
  
"Brat."  
  
"Old lady."  
  
"You're trying to get me riled up, tadpole."  
  
"Is it working, Old Slug Lady?"  
  
"Get out of my sight! Both of you!"  
  
Sasuke grinned. "We'll give your regards to Sakura."  
  
"Do that, bastards!"  
  
"That didn't take long," Sasuke commented.  
  
"Eh," Naruto agreed. "I wonder why Sakura-chan didn't tell us."  
  
Sasuke shrugged. Naruto frowned. It was Sasuke's 'I have some suspicions but I'm not going to tell you' shrug. After over eleven years of working with the other man, Naruto had learnt to read him fairly well, and right now, Sasuke was radiating a fair bit of anger, determination, petulance and protectiveness. A mixture that Naruto had to admit he was feeling more than a bit of himself.  
  
"Anyway, I'm off home," Sasuke broke the silent moment. "Packing to do. Meet you at Miss Hinata's team's meeting spot at dawn?"  
  
"Sure," Naruto agreed, heading towards his own small house. "I'm home!" he called, as he opened the door.  
  
"Welcome back," Hinata's voice floated in from their bedroom.  
  
"Can you pull out my bags too, Hinata-chan?" he asked, walking into the room. "I'm coming too."  
  
She looked up, her pearl-white eyes wide with surprise.  
  
"I... eh heh heh... I kinda said...."  
  
Hinata sighed. "She's kicked you out of the village again, hasn't she?"  
  
"No! Well, kinda," he admitted. "But I told her I'd be going with you, not to the Pervert Master."  
  
"You shouldn't talk about Master Jiraya that way," Hinata said flatly. "You know he's a really good teacher."  
  
"You wouldn't say that if you'd heard what he says about you," Naruto muttered under his breath.  
  
"What was that, Naruto-kun?"  
  
"Anyway, you know I can't let you go off for two months on your own," he said, pulling out his sleeping bag and inadvertently raking his chestnuts out of the frying pan and into the flames.  
  
"What did you just say?" Hinata demanded, her tone saying quite clearly, 'I heard but I'm going to give you a chance to rephrase before I kick you out of the house'.  
  
"I... you know I get lonely without you! I don't want to be alone for that long!"  
  
Hinata's face softened and Naruto let out a sigh of relief.  
  
"Don't get in the way of my team and I, though," Hinata added. "I have a job to do and children to teach, and I really need you to stay out of it."  
  
"Okay," Naruto said, cheerfulness restored. "But you will call on me when you need me, right? I mean, there's nobody in Konoha that can match me for shadow clones and chakra!"  
  
"So let me love you / That's all I want...."  
  
Haruno Sakura, better known throughout Fire Country as 'Cherry', let her head fall forward, whilst the backup band brought the song to a close. It fitted the melancholy tone of the song to have the singer look mournful as she sang, and she played it to the hilt.  
  
It wasn't feigned, either. She'd written the song about the time some ten years beforehand, about her feelings for a boy she'd thought she loved (and maybe she had, as much as she'd been capable of loving anyone at fourteen), and what she thought must have been the feelings of the two boys who'd had crushes on her.  
  
Back then, she'd had her life planned out. A quiet, steady progression through genin to chuunin to jounin, then a successful career as a kunoichi, interrupted by marriage to her crush, brought to an honourable close by the birth of their children. This plan had come to a screaming halt the day she'd chosen to put herself between an enemy far too strong for her and her injured teammates, paying for it with a shattered leg and destroyed ankle and knee. Her injuries had healed well enough for her to walk again (albeit with a pronounced limp) but she would never be able to make kunoichi. She had been informed that it was considered an honourable retirement -- but when all her friends were ninja-in-training, and she wasn't, anymore....  
  
Her mother had been terribly worried by the depression she'd sunk into, and had sent her off to stay with her aunt in Fire Country's capital city, thinking that the change in lifestyle would help. It had, mainly because once there she'd been discovered by her recording company's talent scout. The totally unexpected new opportunity had generated other dreams, and the fact that it required effort had successfully distracted her. If there was one thing Sakura had never been scared of, it was hard work, and she worked at being a good musician as hard as she had at being a kunoichi. Which was why she had hit the top of the charts and stayed there.  
  
In a bittersweet decision, she'd kept contact with her friends in Konoha -- Ino and Hinata wrote gossipy letters full of news, a bouncy missive arrived from Naruto every two weeks or so, and every month Sasuke sent her a full report of his doings (as he wrote, "I don't know how to write letters, only how to tell you what's been happening"). But it had become very, very clear to her that they were now moving in different worlds.  
  
She hadn't yet heard a reply from the Hokage to her request for guards, and she refused to confirm her latest tour until she did. The latest threats had been worrying. Not the ones to her person; she still practiced daily with her kunai, genjutsu and ninjutsu, so she was quite sure she could handle anyone who tried to attack her. But some of the things hinted at in the last few could impact on others, and she would not put civilians in danger.  
  
Sakura waited for the lights to go down. This particular concert had been performed standing, and her leg had passed 'ache' some time back and was now in that special realm of 'numb' where the moment she did anything silly, like walking, she'd feel as though she were being stabbed over and over up and down the length of the limb. Normally, when she wasn't playing her keyboard with its specially-designed seat, she was draped artistically across some plaster rocks or furniture, with a heating pad strategically placed under her right leg. This time, however, the venue hadn't been able to take her equipment, and she'd had to perform without the support. Her gown hid the ankle and knee support bandages she was wearing, but strapping a gel heat pad to her leg would disrupt the line of the costume.  
  
It was well-known to the media and her fans that Cherry had been in an accident as a child that had injured her leg so she couldn't dance the way other idols could. Only her friends in Konoha and her roadies knew the full extent of her injuries, and Sakura wanted to keep it that way.  
  
Finally the lights went down, and after taking her bows, she stumbled along the corridor to her dressing room. Flopping down into the easy chair that had been set close to the heater, at just the right angle to let her aching leg absorb the warmth while not scorching her face, she set her hand down to find a bottle of chilled water right there.  
  
She stiffened and said softly, "Who is it?"  
  
"Who do you think, Sakura?"  
  
Swinging around in the armchair, she blinked to see her old teammate (and, ironically, the crush she'd been singing about) leaning against the wall beside the door. "Sasuke-kun! This is a surprise," she replied. "Did you like the concert?"  
  
"Why didn't you tell us?" he demanded.  
  
/Uh-oh,/ Sakura thought, and decided not to play dumb. "I can take care of myself," she replied. "Why are you here? It's a C-class mission and you're jounin now."  
  
"Really. I was able to walk in here, totally rearrange your room, and watch you for a full minute before you spotted me, and you can take care of yourself."  
  
"Thank you for switching on the heater," Sakura said calmly. "For the rest -- I'm a highly paid entertainer, someone normally comes in and cleans up my dressing room for me. Your alterations weren't screamingly obvious, so I dismissed them as the maid's work. And you're jounin now -- when you hide your chakra, I can't spot it unless I'm actively looking for it. Plus, I trust you. This wouldn't happen if you were my stalker."  
  
Sasuke snorted, and then the door opened.  
  
"Sakura-chan!" Naruto yelled, bouncing into the room, followed by Hinata, who said, "Hello, Miss Sakura."  
  
"Hello to both of you!" Sakura replied. "What brings you both here?"  
  
"I'm in charge of the genin team that has been assigned to your contract, Miss Sakura," Hinata replied. "Naruto-kun and Sasuke-kun, however, are here because they had a fight with Lady Tsunade when she wouldn't assign them to get rid of your stalker."  
  
Sakura gave the two young men a slit-eyed look as Naruto added, "So we're here to do it anyway!"  
  
"Why am I not surprised," Sakura murmured.  
  
"Her security is woeful," Sasuke told Naruto firmly, ignoring the two women. "I came back here during the concert and I wasn't accosted once."  
  
"And how stealthy were you attempting to be?" Sakura demanded.  
  
Sasuke gave her an injured look. "A reasonable level of stealth," he said reproachfully. "No jutsu."  
  
"We were trained to melt into the shadows without jutsu," Sakura commented. "It doesn't count."  
  
"Ne, ne, aren't you happy to see us, Sakura-chan?" Naruto asked, giving her his best puppy-eyes.  
  
She sighed. "Yes, of course I'm happy to see all of you," Sakura replied, including Hinata in the smile she gave. "It's just, I don't need a babysitter!"  
  
"I never said you did," Sasuke said in an aggrieved tone. "I'm just saying, you need more security than you have. But we're here now, so you don't have to worry anymore. We'll take care of you."  
  
"Miss Hinata," Sakura said quietly, in tones simmering with anger, "tell your husband and his best friend that I am perfectly capable of protecting myself."  
  
Pearl-white eyes met jade-green, and while Sakura could read wry sympathy in the other woman's expression, she also saw an unyielding strength. "I'm sorry, Miss Sakura, but you know Naruto-kun and Sasuke-kun as well as I do. They'll do it with or without our permission. At least if you say yes you won't be tripping over them in the middle of the night."  
  
Sakura shut her eyes and sighed. "All right," she conceded grumpily. "Fine. We're all going on tour."  
  
Author's Notes:  
1. The 'no marriage before thirty' law is not canonical, but rather my way of accounting for the fact that there are no young married couples floating around Konoha.  
2. I have done my best to translate the Japanese honourifics appropriately, but there is no really good way to translate either '-chan' (because the English equivalent(s) are either too intimate or too condescending to cover all the usages) or '-kun' (because it can mean either a person of equal rank, or an extremely high-ranked person, higher than '-sama'). Thus I have left them alone.  
3. I know Hinata is a lot bolder here than she is in the canon series. This story is set ten years after the manga, though, and I think Hinata will gain confidence as she gets older and grows up, especially as she now has Naruto on her side. I've tried to show that she's still very polite and diffident with people she sees as equals and superiors, but that she's confident in her ability to do things she knows how to do -- such as teaching a genin team. 


	2. Chapter Two

Harmonia  
  
by Raye Johnsen  
  
'Naruto' is copyright Kishimoto Masashi and all associated parties, NOT ME.  
  
Part Two  
  
Inuzuka Hige blinked and sniffed the air behind him. Beside him, Fuuka softly whined, telling him in her own language that Master Hinata was in front of them, while Arashi was to one side. Hige could smell Tsukasa coming up behind him.  
  
He sighed as quietly as he could -- this training exercise was probably a washout already, but there was no use compounding the problem -- and quietly dropped back to intercept Tsukasa.  
  
The other boy wasn't easy to spot, and if he hadn't had Fuuka's nose on the job, Hige might have missed him. As it was, the other boy's dark green hair -- yet another dye job; Arashi was wild with jealousy that Tsukasa could dye his hair any colour he liked and his parents just let him -- let him blend into the trees that much better.  
  
"Hey," Hige said.  
  
"'Allo," said Tsukasa, who also liked to speak foreign languages at people. Hige ignored it most of the time. Every team had its oddball.  
  
"I think we need to change tactics," Hige said quickly. "Master Hinata hasn't fallen in any of Arashi's traps, and there is a time limit on this exercise."  
  
"We could throw a net over her."  
  
"She'd see it coming."  
  
"We could drop rocks on her."  
  
"From where? This is Master Hinata we're talking about. We aren't combat specialists anyway."  
  
"I think it's a bit late to change the plan any--"  
  
A loud shriek rent the air.  
  
"Arashi," both boys chorused, beginning to move forward to the source of the cry.  
  
They soon found it, in the person of a girl hanging upside down from a noose around her foot, suspended from a tall tree. Master Hinata was standing beneath the tree with her arms crossed.  
  
"It defeats your purpose to get caught in your own trap," she was explaining patiently as the two boys ran up. The girl's long brown plait swung hypnotically back and forth over the grass, and Hige had to warn Fuuka not to attack it. She was still a puppy, after all.  
  
After they had cut Arashi down, Master Hinata lectured them on principles of stealth, and then broke the news. "We have a C-class mission."  
  
"Yeah!" Arashi said.  
  
"What are we doing?" Hige asked.  
  
"Do I have to redye my hair?" Tsukasa wanted to know.  
  
"We're bodyguarding Haruno Sakura's tour, and no, Tsukasa, probably not."  
  
Hige frowned. The name sounded familiar.... "Who's Haruno Sakura?"  
  
Master Hinata smiled. "She's an idol singer. Her stage name is 'Cherry'."  
  
All three gaped at her. "Cherry? The Cherry?" Arashi demanded after a long pause.  
  
"So far as I know, there's only one," Master Hinata replied. "She was a genin of Konoha before an injury forced her retirement, so you may have heard of her from that, too."  
  
All three genin blinked at her.  
  
"Here are the details, so you can tell your parents. People in public view often pick up stalkers, and Miss Sakura, alas, has proven no exception. Up until recently, her stalker has been content with admiring from afar. Now, however, the stalker has begun making threats, and while Miss Sakura feels that she is in no personal danger, she fears for the safety of her backup band and support personnel. We are going to be accompanying her concert tour, ensuring that the accommodation they all stay in and the venues she's performing at are safe, and also guarding the group while they are travelling. It will take approximately two months, and we're going to be travelling all over the country."  
  
Arashi found her voice first. "We're... touring with Cherry?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
Silence reigned again, until Master Hinata finally said, "You'd better go home and pack. We're leaving at dawn tomorrow."  
  
The three strolled down the street towards their houses. "Hey," Arashi said into the quiet, "you guys still coming over my place to listen to Cherry's latest single?"  
  
"Um. Yep. Sure," Tsukasa replied. "I never thought... we're going to meet her."  
  
"We're going to meet her," Hige echoed. Then he grinned. "My little sister Toboe's going to freak."  
  
"Her and the entire Konoha chapter of the Cherry Fan Club," Arashi said distantly. "Good thing we're good at running."  
  
They entered the Taishakus' house, toeing their shoes off at the door. Arashi jumped over the lip of the entryway. "Hey guys," she said, "be careful, there's --"  
  
CRASH!  
  
"-- A trap," she finished.  
  
Hige and Tsukasa looked up through the holes of the net that pinned them down in the hole that the flimsy cardboard, painted to resemble floorboards, had concealed. "Why," Tsukasa asked, quite reasonably, "is there a trap here?"  
  
"To catch burglars," Arashi replied, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.  
  
"Your dad's a member of ANBU," Hige commented. "Your mother teaches hand-to-hand at the Academy. Everyone knows you're the best in the village at time-delay stuff and traps. What burglar would be insane enough to try your house?"  
  
"Well, one might not know where we live," Arashi pointed out.  
  
Fuuka peered down into the hole and made a disparaging comment about humans and obvious traps they missed. Hige restrained himself from an unprintable reply -- Fuuka's mother was the partner of Hige's mother, Inuzuka Tsume, and if she reported what he said (and she would) he'd get it from both of them as well as Fuuka herself.  
  
"Please help us out," he finally contented himself with saying.  
  
"Okay," Arashi chirped, pulling a rope which cinched the net shut under the boys, then pulled them back up out of the hole and finally (using a pulley) wound then over a set of 'safe' floorboards. Arashi released the net, dumping the boys out -- they landed with a very heavy thud -- and then carefully restrung it up to where it had been, replacing the cardboard floorboards. She finally turned to her teammates, who were still lying where they had fallen, groaning theatrically.  
  
"What's wrong?" she asked innocently.  
  
"Even we know better than to go through your house without a guide," Tsukasa said flatly.  
  
"Oh... right," Arashi replied, and the three of them filed through the house till they reached a cheerful girl's bedroom.  
  
It was a bit different to most girls' bedrooms. Most girls didn't have several terrariums with different landscapes set up in them with various traps in their rooms. The Taishaku family cat was lying on the top of one of them, lazily swinging a paw against the glass at the mice inside. Arashi snatched him up and cuddled him. "Don't do that," she mock-scolded him.  
  
"So, music," Tsukasa demanded.  
  
"Here it is," Arashi told him, handing him a burnt umber sleeve with the picture of a lit candle on it and the title 'Eternal Flame'. He flipped it open, popped the small disc off its plastic rack, opened Arashi's CD player and slid the disc in in one smooth motion.  
  
Cherry's sweet contralto opened the song, and then the piano entered, followed by the rest of the instruments. The three lay back side by side on Arashi's bed, listening to the music.  
  
"This is us, y'know," Arashi said softly, as Cherry sang about eternal friendship and unbreakable bonds. "A team. She must be singing about her team."  
  
"Yep," Tsukasa said. "I wonder who they were."  
  
"I wonder what happened," Hige said. "Even when injured, a team's still a team and a partner's still a partner. Even after they're gone."  
  
Fuuka yipped sympathetically, recognising Hige's grief for his first dog-partner, despite the fact that he had died of old age before she was born.  
  
"I guess we'll never know," Arashi sighed. The song ended. "Again?"  
  
"Again," Hige and Tsukasa chorused.  
  
That night, Hige waited until dinner to break the news.  
  
Dinner at the Inuzuka house was loud, crowded and usually punctuated by barking as dogs and humans sorted themselves into some sort of order. It paid to be nice to those Inuzuka who were on kitchen duty that week. Hige had been very helpful to his uncle Kiba a few days before, and now it was rewarded as he and Fuuka were served in good time.  
  
He waited until there was a lull in the table noise to announce, loudly, "I've got a mission. For the next two months, I'm going to be escorting Cherry's tour."  
  
Half the table choked on the food that they had been in the act of swallowing. The door to the kitchen flew open and Kiba came stalking out. "Cherry? You mean Haruno Sakura?"  
  
"Yes," Hige answered.  
  
"And Naruto and Sasuke aren't taking it? They mustn't know, I'll have to tell Naruto...." and Kiba stalked out of the dining hall, obviously intent on informing his friend of his nephew's mission. Hige blinked as he watched his uncle leave, before his attention was distracted by his sister. True to his earlier statement, Toboe was quivering with excitement.  
  
"What happened? Why are you escorting Cherry? Is this an official mission? I wanna go! It's not fair! Mama, make Hige take me!"  
  
"It is an official mission, sis," Hige announced. "Miss Haruno -- Cherry -- has got a stalker and he's been getting nastier, so she got worried and asked the Hokage for a bodyguard for her band. The Hokage gave the job to Master Hinata and my team. And no, you can't come. You're not even a genin yet."  
  
Toboe pouted. "'S'not my fault I'm ten," she grumbled. "Just you wait till I am a genin, Daiki and me'll wipe the floor with you." Her partner gave an agreeing bark.  
  
Hige rolled his eyes. "But you aren't a genin yet," he replied. "I'll get her autograph for you, how's that?"  
  
"An autograph and a ticket to her show in the capital," Toboe replied quickly. "Or I hide in your bag."  
  
"An autograph and three tickets to her show here in Konoha," Hige bargained back.  
  
"She's having a show here in Konoha?" Tsume asked, having listened in with the rest of the table to the sibling bickering. "You'll be seeing that one, Toboe."  
  
"But, the capital is --"  
  
"-- too far away for a ten-year-old to go," Tsume declared, in a that-settles-that voice. "You can see her in Konoha."  
  
Toboe subsided with several sotto voce growlings, and Hige's older cousins began to offer advice on travelling missions.  
  
Arashi's parents were less amenable.  
  
They insisted on making a phonecall to Master Hinata to verify what Arashi had told them. Arashi listened in on the extention in her bedroom, and was most displeased to hear her father inform Master Hinata of the family ban on Arashi and explosives (for goodness' sake, she'd been four, and it was an accident, and they'd been needing a new garden shed anyway), but was quite cheered up when she heard that Master Hinata's husband would be accompanying them. Master Naruto was so cool, and he never minded teaching them new stuff. Of course, Master Hinata would tell him off for it later, but it was cool, even so.  
  
She wasn't quite so pleased when she heard that Mr. Uchiha would also be coming.  
  
Arashi had heard a lot about Mr. Uchiha from her father, venting to her mother about his colleagues when they thought she was safely in bed. He was the last of a powerful clan, and so he was rich. He was also crazy, according to her father. Apparently he had a Bloodline Limit that made its possessors psycho. Plus he'd seen and done some truly insane things. "Of course, then the attack happened...." her father would say, and shrug. 'The attack', whatever it was, was something separate yet again. Her father had never explained it. But her father always stayed as far away from Mr. Uchiha as possible. Arashi, with her child's ego, was firmly convinced that her father was the bravest, strongest fighter in Konoha -- he was in ANBU, wasn't he? -- so if he avoided Mr. Uchiha... well, clearly Mr. Uchiha was best avoided.  
  
"I suppose that was inevitable. At least we know Arashi will be safe...." Mr. Taishaku said to his wife after hanging up, as Arashi came down the stairs.  
  
"What's inevitable? How do you know I'll be safe? You're not going to try to keep me home, are you? You know I have to go," Arashi said, all in a rush, sounding very like the precocious thirteen-year-old that she was.  
  
"Uchiha Sasuke will be accompanying your group... for personal reasons. And you'll be safe because he's absolutely fanatic about his teammates' personal safety --"  
  
"-- well, after what happened that time, can you blame him?" her mother muttered.  
  
"So, Arashi, better head up and finish packing your bags," her father finished.  
  
Arashi squealed, hugged both her parents, and ran up the stairs to her room, automatically avoiding the false steps and trigger panels.  
  
Inside her mind, however, a few pieces were fitting together.  
  
/Haruno Sakura retired after an injury. Uchiha Sasuke is fanatic about safety after something happened. And he's coming with us for personal reasons./  
  
/I think I need to talk with Hige and Tsukasa about this./  
  
When Arashi turned up at her team's meeting place at dawn the next morning, she found Tsukasa waiting for her. With bright pink hair.  
  
She blinked for a few seconds, and then said, "I thought you didn't want to redye your hair?"  
  
Tsukasa made a face. "It's washout colour mousse," he replied. "If I dye my hair too often, it'll stop being able to take any colour at all, so I'm trying out other options. I've got more in my pack. Maybe we'll need a decoy for Miss Haruno sometime." He lifted an eyebrow at her. "So, how do I look in pink?"  
  
Arashi paused while she tried to come up with something tactful. Tsukasa naturally had dark hair, light blue eyes and pale skin, so light-coloured hair tended to make him look like a ghost. "Um... you looked better with green," she finally settled on.  
  
"Oh." Tsukasa sounded disappointed.  
  
"The decoy idea is good, though," a different voice commented, and both teenagers turned to see a man in a dark blue and white outfit leaning against a tree on the edge of the clearing.  
  
"Mr. Uchiha," Arashi breathed.  
  
"Taishaku Arashi," he nodded. "Shizuka Tsukasa. It is good to meet both of you."  
  
"Will you be working with us, Mr. Uchiha?" Tsukasa asked politely.  
  
"No," Mr. Uchiha replied. "I will be working with Haruno Sakura personally. But if you need me, I'll help you."  
  
"But isn't Miss Haruno an ex-genin?" Tsukasa asked. "She should be able to take on an ordinary stalker."  
  
Mr. Uchiha threw them an unreadable look but only said, "Sakura is far more than she appears, and the problem is that too many people know it."  
  
"Hey Sasuke! Did you get any sleep last night?"  
  
All three turned to see Master Hinata, Master Naruto and Hige walking towards the clearing. Master Naruto walked a little faster, arriving ahead of Master Hinata and Hige, marching up to Mr. Uchiha and clapping him on the shoulder.  
  
"I slept well enough," Mr. Uchiha said. Arashi privately hoped he was lying -- if he got any grumpier, she'd start expecting him to throw kunai in lieu of conversation.  
  
"Is everyone ready?" Master Hinata asked, hefting her own pack on her back. A chorus of affirmatives answered her question. "Then let's go."  
  
Arashi sighed as she fell into line. Tsukasa always took point with his speed and stealth, and Hige always took rear guard with Fuuka, their noses giving them a clear picture of what was behind them as well as what was in front. Her skills, however, were strongest in combat or during a mission, rather than in transit, so she was always in the middle. Unfortunately, this also meant she was walking with the adults. Including Mr. Uchiha. It was going to be a long trip.  
  
It wasn't that far to the capital, only two days' journey. Moving at the steady ninja's half-run, however, the six ninja made it there in just under fourteen hours. They arrived at the gates of the capital just as dusk was falling.  
  
The three genin stood apart from the three jounin, their legs braced apart and their hands on their knees, hunched over and panting. "Don't stand like that too long," Hinata cautioned them. "You'll cramp up. Shake out your arms and legs; we have to get to our hotel yet."  
  
"I'm hunnngry," Arashi whined. She didn't usually act bratty, but she was a year younger than the boys and she wasn't above playing the little kid when it was likely to get results. "I want to eat raaamen," she added, mindful of her audience.  
  
"Mmmm, ramen," Naruto agreed. "Let's shake our legs out and get something good to eat -- chicken ramen...."  
  
"Beef ramen," Arashi commented.  
  
"Pork ramen," Tsukasa added.  
  
"Kitsune ramen with extra fishcakes," Hige said dreamily.  
  
"They've added it to the menu at all the local ramen restaurants," Hinata said in an undertone to Sasuke, who was looking at his companions as if he'd never met them before. "It's really quite good."  
  
"Teriyaki, anyone?" Sasuke suggested.  
  
"Fish teriyaki?" Hige asked.  
  
"Probably."  
  
Hige turned to his teammates. "Fish teriyaki?" he asked.  
  
"Ramen," Arashi said firmly.  
  
"Fish!"  
  
"Fish ramen?" Tsukasa suggested.  
  
"They don't do fish ramen," Hige said sadly. "I've asked at home, remember?"  
  
Hinata stepped in at this point. "Let's go to our hotel. It has a restaurant nearby that serves ramen and fish."  
  
"Yay!" three teenagers cheered and were halfway down the street before they stopped and turned around, obviously waiting for the slowpokes.  
  
"My condolences," Sasuke said to Hinata.  
  
"What? Why?" Naruto asked.  
  
"She's got three genin who are just like you."  
  
"Why, you --"  
  
But they had caught up to the teenagers by then.  
  
The next morning, Hige and Tsukasa rolled out of their futons and staggered into their suite's main room to find four adults sitting there sipping tea. The strange woman had cherry-blossom pink hair and when they came in, she looked up at them and smiled. It was a smile that both boys were very familiar with; it beamed out from posters all over Konoha's music store.  
  
"Hello," she said. "You must be Inuzuka Hige and Shizuka Tsukasa. I am Haruno Sakura, and I'm very pleased to meet you."  
  
Tsukasa inwardly cursed. He'd washed the pink out of his hair the night before and he hadn't even put any streaks in it yet.... /But Arashi said you look better with the green,/ he reminded himself. He bowed and muttered something that could be argued to be "I'm honoured."  
  
Hige also bowed. "It's an honour, Miss Haruno."  
  
"Perhaps you should wake Arashi and the three of you, when ready, can join us in planning," Hinata gently ordered. Both boys blinked and then ran into the other room. Jumping on Arashi's futon, they shook her until her teeth rattled.  
  
"'m up, I'm up, Hige I'll bite you if you don't stop," Arashi protested.  
  
"We gotta get dressed quick, Miss Haruno's outside and we gotta plan and where did I put my sandals?" Tsukasa rattled off, pulling a folded paper screen out of the wall and diving behind it.  
  
"We've all seen bare feet before, worry about covering everything else first," Arashi called back, ducking behind a screen of her own.  
  
"Miss Haruno seems nice," Hige commented as he and his teammates rushed through their morning rituals.  
  
"I hope -- ugh! -- hope you're right," Arashi replied.  
  
"She was sitting next to Mr. Uchiha and he was scowling at her," Tsukasa volunteered.  
  
"I like her already," Arashi commented. 


End file.
